


Collision Theory

by sekaiseifuku



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Body Modification, Genetic Engineering, Hair Kink, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:06:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sekaiseifuku/pseuds/sekaiseifuku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collision theory holds that reactions can occur only when particles encounter each other in proper alignment and with sufficient force. Successful collisions have enough energy at the moment of impact to break preexisting bonds and form entirely new bonds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Collision Theory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [samsarapine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samsarapine/gifts).



After a long day tracking black market tech with a healthy side of junkie roundup, Zenon figured there was pretty much nothing better than getting away to his own little piece of paradise: white sand stretching for miles on both sides of him, palm trees blowing in the salty ocean breeze, and a long-haired blonde walking toward him with a mouth quite literally made for sucking cock. 

She was just sinking to her knees when the message from Homura came in. It arrived as they all did, out of the blue in an executable file delivered to the unregistered and highly illegal receiver implanted directly behind Zenon’s standard issue processor. Upon execution, it delivered a single message directly to his visual cortex: 

_**2530: priority, everything you’ve got** _

“Shit.” 

He called up the time.

_—2356—_

Just enough time. If he left immediately.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He gave his companion a rueful smile before reaching inward to disengage his mental link with the VR unit. 

He’d always hated the electric jolt of disconnect, the crashing overload that hit his senses as reality slammed back into him. The heavy ache of his body and the stale smell of scrubbed, recycled air were bad enough, but these days it took longer and longer for him to shake the feeling that the walls of his pod were closing in on him. Back in the day when he’d worked Missing Persons, he used to wonder why they’d always found so many of those who’d stopped turning up to their shifts dead in their pods, their decaying bodies still connected to their VR units. 

He didn’t wonder anymore. 

Tossing the unit onto the soft surface of the bed behind him, Zenon reached up to hit the lights and raise his privacy visor. The view of thousands of hibernating pods on the other side of the bay wasn’t much, but it at least helped to ease the perpetual sense of claustrophobia deep in his chest. He stood up enough to slide open the upper compartment and swing down his nav panel. The tech was laughably outdated, but manual nav took more power to track than mental. And that worked to Zenon’s advantage.

It was funny how things changed when something the world took for granted suddenly became a commodity as subject to scarcity as everything else. For thousands of years, they’d all been told L-line power was as inexhaustible as the rays of the sun. Imagine everyone’s surprise and dismay when it turned it they’d been wrong. In the two years since Conservation had gone into effect, the decrease in power allowances had hit everyone pretty fucking hard: from the communal living grunts all the way up to the government itself. Zenon’d heard from an ex-partner that as a part of their Conservation compliance plan, the guys over in the Force’s data collection unit had quietly stopped routine collection of manual tracking data eighteen months ago.

That made things so much easier for Zenon. 

He forewent the list of saved destinations that appeared on the panel and plugged this one in by hand. There was a public temp-dock a couple of blocks from the back alley pleasure facility where he did all his business and he’d long since memorized the coordinates. While his pod went through the final power protocols and began the process of undocking, Zenon got up, pulled a battered case out from under his narrow bed, and opened the hidden refrigeration unit in the floor. 

He grinned as he ran his fingers over the stockpile of vials and pre-loaded hypoguns: he was sitting on a veritable cornucopia of genetic modifications. Anything humankind had developed a patch for was out there in the underground market and he had access to it all — as long as he could catch the guys and keep the higher-ups thinking he was finding less than he was. There was a lot of bullshit he had to put up as a rank and file Enforcer, but if kissing ass and putting on a happy face kept him in the line of mods like this? He’d do it all fucking day long.

Business had been damned good recently. Zenon had pretty quick turnover, but the amateurs that’d been flooding the streets with product over the past couple months had been shamefully inept. Even with the increased number of Homura’s people that he’d been selling to, Zenon had still managed to skim more off the top of what he brought in for disposal than he was able to sell. 

The price some of the mods were going for outside official channels was truly outrageous. Hell, he’d picked one up just this morning off some nutjob who’d been trying to pawn it off for more than most grunts made in a year, claiming it had been smuggled out of some top-secret lab and could give Norms access to L-line energy. 

Zenon snorted to himself. _As if that’s anything but a VR fantasy trope._

He’d almost passed that one up and turned it over for official disposal, but he’d decided against it at the last minute. There was, after all, always someone out there rich and stupid enough to buy the shit caveat emptor. Despite all the talk of an “Equal and Prosperous Enterprise,” there were still gullible assholes with more capital than was good for them, even among the Norms. 

Homura didn’t normally send those guys his way, but Zenon slipped his latest acquisition in the bottom drawer of the case anyway on the off chance tonight’s customer was a bit of fundraising for the cause. He had, after all, been told to bring everything. 

The trip across town took less time than both he and his pod calculated. Pod traffic was always light this time of night: well past the start of night shift, but long enough before morning that those who had to go on shift then were still home-docked. It seemed, however, that traffic had declined to a fraction of its previous levels since Conservation. Even the citizens still lucky enough to be able to scrape together the capital necessary to escape communal living didn’t rate an energy allowance beyond what it took to get their pods to and from their shifts and to keep their ventilation systems running. 

There were times now that Zenon looked out of his view panel and felt like he was the only one in the sky. Looking up and seeing nothing but blankets of toxic clouds, reflecting the now-subdued light from the city back at him was eerie as hell, but there was something about it that eased the ever-present clench that resided low in his stomach, even if just a little. He wondered if this was how the colonists felt when they finally broke free of the planet’s ruined atmosphere, every second they hurtled through space another two hundred thousand miles between them and the shithole they called home. 

Zenon had to take a second to laugh at that though. Seriously, what the fuck was he thinking? That “brave new beginnings” thing was nothing but a pipe dream fed to the masses to keep them working and obedient. He didn’t doubt the colonies were real, but there was no chance anyone like him or the tens of billions of other surface dwellers had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a ticket offworld, no matter what they were told. 

Besides, the only thing that’d be different would be the scenery — the bullshit would be exactly the same.

 

He arrived nearly ten minutes ahead of schedule. He’d already donned his rebreather and was in the process of securing his pod in the temp-dock when another message from Homura arrived.

_**behind you** _

Zenon quickly finished his interface and dropped his connection with the dock before turning around. It took him a moment to spot the vehicle, hovering in the dank alley between a communal rest facility and what appeared to be a shuttered-up noodle stand from the old days. 

He couldn’t help sending a quick reply.

_—What the fuck?—_

The response was instantaneous.

_**get in** _

Zenon grabbed his case and was across the pedestrian road by the time the vehicle door had lowered to the ground. 

Homura was inside, facing the door and glaring at him as he ascended the steps. “Hurry up, you’re spoiling the air.” 

“Nice to see you too, Homura.” 

The door clicked shut behind Zenon and he felt a rush of breeze around him, the vehicle’s circulation system exchanging the now-contaminated cabin air for freshly-scrubbed. He dropped his case onto one of the plush seats, his rebreather soon following it. 

“You gonna clue me in here?” he asked, rubbing his face. “Because if I didn’t know any better, I’d think that you just picked me up in some fancy-ass government transport.”

“I did.” 

That was Homura. Man of a million words.

As the vehicle began to move toward whatever coordinates Homura had set, Zenon began to realize that he should perhaps be worried about what was about to go down. Homura had always sent people to him; he’d never once shown up for a sale and had certainly never sent transport. Hell, Zenon hadn’t even known Homura had access to this kind of transport. Only the big shots had access to fancy shit like this.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized there was something off about Homura tonight, something that prickled along his nerves in a wash of unease. Zenon’s gut had always been good about clueing him in to when people were hiding something and there were some pretty big alarms going off. This was no ordinary sale. Hell, there was nothing about the whole situation that was even remotely ordinary.

The logical conclusion was that Homura was not, in fact, the big bad rebel he made himself out to be. That Zenon — who was currently in possession of approximately one hundred and fifty varieties of stolen and illegal mods — had been picked up in government transport on his way to a sale because Homura had finally decided he was more trouble than he was worth and was planning on turning him in to the higher-ups. 

And if that were the case, Zenon’d be the proud recipient of a one-way ticket to the execution facility, courtesy of the most benevolent Benefactors’ no-tolerance mandate.

“So what gives, Homura? You tagging along to see me work my magic?” Zenon laughed nervously and wiggled his fingers. 

“We’re making a house call,” Homura stated. “A government vehicle won’t be questioned. That pod of yours wouldn’t make it within ten kilometers of our client.” The haughty look that crossed his face made it obvious what he thought of Zenon’s accommodations. 

The vehicle’s windows were set to opaque and Zenon couldn’t see shit. He had no idea where they were going, not even the general direction. A quick position query turned up a big fat “cannot calculate,” meaning his locator signal was being jammed, likely by the vehicle itself. 

“Homura, seriously,” Zenon said. “Where the fuck are we going?” He was turning possibility after possibility over in his mind, trying to figure it out. He couldn’t think of a single place he knew where the presence of transport like this wouldn’t create more questions that it answered.

“The Upper Level.” 

Zenon sat there, his mouth open like some kind of idiot. There was no way he could have heard that correctly. But sure enough, now that he focused on it, he could feel the slightest bit of pressure bearing down on him. The transport was definitely ascending. 

“Oh.”

The next fifteen minutes were the longest of Zenon’s life. Homura closed his eyes and made like he was using the down time for a bit of sleep, but Zenon knew better. He didn’t have access to what was going on in Homura’s processor, but he would have bet a fairly large bit of capital that behind those shuttered eyes, Homura was hard at work, coordinating the living game pieces involved in his Big Plan.

Zenon, however, was too keyed up to do anything but focus on keeping his breathing steady and heart rate under control. His mind may have been racing, but he couldn’t let his body do the same. Not in front of Homura. 

Calm, cool, and collected. That was Zenon. 

A faint beep from the vehicle was all it took to rouse Homura, taking him from eerily still to hyper-alert in a fraction of a second.

“We’re almost there.” Homura said, pulling his cloak around him. “I need you to promise me something, Zenon.” 

“What’s that?” 

“I know this will be contrary to your normal state, but I cannot emphasize how important it is to the continued success of our endeavors.” 

“Yeah, okay.” Zenon generally found it easiest to agree to whatever Homura wanted. 

“You will follow me without question, no matter what happens,” he said, as serious as Zenon had ever seen him. “You will remain absolutely calm, no matter what you see. Above all else, you will treat our client with the utmost respect. You will answer his queries truthfully and completely, but that’s it. No questions, no comments, no chit-chat. Do you understand?” 

“Sure. Keep my big mouth shut.” Sounded simple enough. “Got it."

“No, you really don’t.” Homura actually was looking just the slightest bit agitated. That was never a good sign. “You need to know that bringing you tonight was not my idea. I was going to wait until next week, get the modifications from you and do this myself. He asked for you specifically to accompany me and insisted on doing it tonight, at the very last minute. There wasn’t enough time to set up a protocol stream for you.”

_Protocol stream? What the fuck?_

“Who the hell are we meeting?”

“A Benefactor,” Homura replied. “His name is Shien.”

“We are now arriving at Section H, Block 6, Hangar Level,” the disembodied voice of the vehicle announced before Zenon could fully process the insanity that had just come out of Homura’s mouth. 

“Homura, what the fuck have you gotten me into?” Zenon’s hand tightened around the arm of his seat as the transport sat down with a jolt, locks on the door popping out of place. If there was anything that had the potential to be _worse_ than being turned in to his fellow Enforcers, it was being dragged in front of a Benefactor to reckon for the countless crimes he had perpetrated over the years against the “purity of humankind.” And the shit those guys could do with a wave of a hand would make the execution facility seem like a walk in the fucking park. 

“Listen to me.” Homura leaned close into him as he rose, his voice a harsh whisper. “Shien is more valuable to us than an army of ten thousand. He’s already done more than you could possibly know. It is imperative that he remains focused on the cause. I will not have you angering or distracting him.”

With that, Homura was through the vehicle door, exiting into the clean, open air of the Upper Level. Zenon had no choice but to follow.

His first thought when he caught sight of the man standing at the bottom of the stairs was that Shien was everything Zenon would have expected of a Benefactor. He was tall, slender, and was wearing robes a shade of blue so light they would be ridiculous to attempt to maintain in the grime of the surface. His hair was pale and appeared to be very long, tied back in the ancient style. And of course there, situated in the middle of his forehead, was the mark of the Benefactors. 

Zenon knew that the simple design contained details of his clan and level of power, but a quick query for specifics turned up a whole lot of nothing. Not surprising. The Benefactors made sure the Norms knew as little about them as possible. 

“Thank you for coming, gentlemen,” Shien began as he approached them. “I appreciate your making time for me at such a late hour on short notice. I hope you’ll forgive me for taking the liberty, but it is best if we do not loiter.”

Suddenly Shien’s hand was on his forearm, the touch followed immediately by the most intense sense of vertigo Zenon had ever experienced. He closed his eyes against it, trying to clear his head. When he opened them again he realized that the three of them had been transported to another location entirely. He knew, of course, that Benefactors were able to do shit like that — moving from place to place in the blink of an eye — but never in a million years had he dreamed he’d experience it for himself. 

“I apologize for the suddenness of transit,” Shien said, releasing their arms. 

The transport hangar was gone, replaced by a large, open room. Living quarters, by the look of it, but much larger and more luxurious than anything Zenon had ever seen in person. He took a few steps toward the transparent wall in front of him that offered an unobstructed view of the seemingly endless sprawl of the Upper Level. It was breathtaking, the large buildings, open spaces and bright illumination a stark contrast to the filthy clutter they’d left behind on the surface. They were far enough above the troposphere to have left its perpetual toxic haze behind and the night sky above them seemed to stretch into infinity, its inky black dotted with innumerable points of light. 

Zenon had never seen the stars before. Not like this. 

“Damn, that’s quite a view you’ve got here.” Seeing the open expanse for himself, he could understand why people might want to risk everything for the chance to see what was out there. As he glanced back at the two men behind him, he didn’t miss the slight narrowing of Homura’s eyes. 

Shit. Not even two minutes into their meeting and he’d forgotten he wasn’t supposed to open his big mouth. 

“Shien, please allow me to introduce Zenon,” Homura began, his voice steely. “As I’ve mentioned, Zenon has been with us since the beginning and has proven to be most valuable. He’s served me very well.”

 _—Served?—_ Zenon shot him a quick electronic retort. _—You gotta be shitting me—_

Homura always had been an arrogant bastard.

Shien bowed slightly before smiling at Zenon, impossibly white teeth gleaming from behind thin lips. “I understand you are most gifted in the procurement of certain necessary supplies.” 

“Yeah, that’s me: procurement specialist.” Zenon took a quick second to surreptitiously examine the Benefactor, cataloguing the details of his appearance. 

He couldn’t decide if the guy was gorgeous or fucking awkward looking. He had sharp features that were unlike anything Zenon had ever seen up close and his body, at least what he could see of it, was the kind of thin that resulted from a lifetime of inactivity rarely afforded anyone on the surface. Channeling L-line energy into the power grid obviously wasn’t physically taxing. He had an air of confidence, though, that made Zenon think that Shien probably didn’t give a rat’s ass what any surface dweller thought about him or the way he looked. Typical Benefactor. 

Still, though, there was something about him. Seeing it in person, Zenon got why so many people had a not-so-secret thing for Benefactors. Too bad it was never reciprocated.

Zenon noted with interest that Shien had no visible ports for tech or nourishment, which would support the rumors that they lived much like people had in the old days, forgoing the conveniences of tech integration. He was willing to bet the guy didn’t even have a processor, the most basic of augments. 

Shien interrupted his train of thought and gestured to a large surface immediately behind him. “I would very much like to see what you have brought with you this evening.” 

“Yeah, sure.” Zenon crossed the room, hefted the case onto the table’s surface, and popped the locks, one after another. “That’s what we’re here for, right?”

He couldn’t imagine what the hell a Benefactor would be up to that would require the purchase of anything he currently had in his possession, particularly considering their complete and absolute abstinence from genetic modification of any sort. Zenon’d been around long enough to know that their no-mods policy was likely as much a result of some really bullshit ideas about what “human” was as it was a means of ensuring whatever it was in their genetic code that gave them their power didn’t get fucked up. 

Still, if Shien was in with Homura, it was pretty well established that he didn’t give a shit about the party line. Maybe he was going to foot the bill for outfitting some of Homura’s people. Hell, maybe he even had his own people. 

Either way, Zenon was getting paid. And there was nothing wrong with that. 

“I got your appearance mods here on the right,” he began. “They’re big sellers, so there’s a pretty broad range: everything from minor facial mods to the more complex and specialized vanity stuff. And believe me, man, there’s some crazy ones out there: shit like horns, a prehensile tail. You’d be surprised at some of insanity I’ve run across.” 

If Zenon hadn’t been fully convinced of the depravity of humankind before he’d started working Tech Control, he might have been horrified by what he was picking up on a daily basis. Lucky for him, though, he’d learned that lesson real early on. 

“Of course we can’t forget my personal favorites,” he said, grinning as he pointed out two rows, each holding a different set of identical vials. “Huge tits and a gigantic cock. Together or separate, they’re my biggest sellers.” 

A message file from Homura arrived. Zenon didn’t have to execute it to know he needed to get the fuck on with things.

“Yeah, so … brain mods are in the center: intelligence, pain threshold, mental health, etc. I also got a couple latent talents if you got people that need a specific boost in a more specialized area or two. Don’t have quite as many of those, but there’s a decent selection of the useful ones. The physiological mods are here on the left. As you can imagine, these go fast. We can bolster your people’s lungs, immune systems, strength, UV tolerance, liver and kidney function if you need ‘em for toxic jobs, whatever.”

“Impressive.” Shien was studying the case with a sharp focus. “I really had no idea these were so freely available.”

“Yeah, well … to be honest, a lot of this ain’t exactly coming from approved laboratories.”

“Indeed.” 

“I got a high-end immunity combo for most of your run-of-the-mill transmissibles. That one’s pretty hard to come by outside official channels. I even got a couple vials of the newest lung boost, just out in the last six months. They’ve managed to up the reduction in damage caused by breathing open atmosphere by a full 10%. Let me tell you from personal experience: that one’s worth the price.” Zenon was lucky his department at the Force had deep pockets and a head who actually gave a shit about her employees’ health. “That one’s easier to get than a lot of the others, if you want to outfit more people than I’ve got stock for.”

He glanced back at Homura, who was watching closely, a blank expression on his face. 

“Oh, I believe you have misunderstood,” Shien said. “I am not buying for anyone else.”

“You’re not?” 

Then what the fuck was Zenon doing here at two o’clock in the damned morning?

“I am afraid it’ll just be for myself this evening.” 

Right, a Benefactor buying illegal mods for himself. The guy thought he was funny. Zenon laughed, the sound uncomfortable even to his own ears. 

He looked from Shien to Homura, then back again. Neither of them was laughing. 

“I do believe I have surprised you,” Shien said, turning away from the case to speak to him directly. “You have heard, of course, that it is forbidden for us to engage in genetic modification — our gifts being the result of a fragile balance that is too easily destroyed.” 

The way he said that last part made it obvious he’d been fed the line verbatim his entire life.

“Uh, yeah,” Zenon replied. “That’s what they say.” 

“‘Forbidden’ is such a strong word, is it not? I have always thought that the best way to encourage curiosity about a thing is to forbid it. As humans, we never can take another’s word at face value. When we hear something is forbidden, we simply cannot help but ask, ‘why?’” 

Zenon didn’t know what to say in response to that. 

Shien turned to face Homura. “You have undergone modification several times yourself, have you not?” 

“Yes,” Homura answered. “Sixteen times.” 

Damn, Zenon hadn’t realized it was that many. Homura must have been getting his shit from someone else, because Zenon’d only sold him that one physio set last year. They’d been good ones, though. Top of the line. 

“Have you experienced any negative effects?” Shien enquired.

“None.”

“And you are still able to utilize your gifts? They have not … diminished?”

Homura paused for a moment before replying, “Quite the contrary.” 

Shien raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yes.” 

Zenon had no idea what they were talking about, but he could feel the shift in atmosphere in the room. He’d seen this more times than he could count: Homura was pissed and trying to hide it.

“I apologize,” Shien began, obviously sensing something was off. “I did not realize that you had not told him.”

“It’s no matter.” Homura turned his attention to Zenon, his gaze calculating. “I was going to soon enough.”

Homura then held up his hand, palm facing upward. Without warning a column of flame erupted out of it, shooting high into the air. 

Zenon jolted backward with shock. He could feel the heat of the flame, even from across the room. The situation, which was already the most surreal thing he’d ever experienced, had just crossed over into the realm of the insane. Homura, the guy he’d known as a Norm since he joined the Force ten years ago, had just performed fucking _magic_.

“Okay, what the _fuck_ is going on here?” Zenon didn’t give a shit about his instructions anymore. He was standing in the living quarters of a Benefactor who had announced his intention to modify his pristine genetic code and Homura, not ten feet from him, had a column of flame coming out of his fucking hand.

Homura dropped his hand, the flame disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared. 

“There is much of which you are unaware, Zenon, and it is much too complicated to explain in the little time we have tonight,” Shien began. “I can tell you that what you have just seen is evidence enough that the modifications I require are highly unlikely to affect my abilities in any material way. While my gifts are substantial, I have found the limitations of my physical body to be a hindrance that must be overcome if I am to continue my work. I am hoping you have the items necessary to provide me with a better functioning form.”

_Wait, hang on._

“Are you talking about a total physio overhaul?” Because if he was, this was more than just a little moneymaker. This was big time.

“As much as possible, yes.”

Shit. Zenon was going to have to do this right. He’d have to do a proper modification, not a half-assed cut-corners job and that took time. A lot of time. 

“You know we can’t do something like that all tonight, right?” Zenon said. “A total physio takes a while to do right. It’s a pretty good chunk of time.”

“I had expected as much.”

“Look, I know I ain’t supposed to be asking questions, but … why aren’t you seeing a pro about this? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m good. I know the protocols and all that, but if something goes wrong, I don’t have access to the facilities to make things right. I’m sure Homura—”

“There can be absolutely no record of this,” Shien interrupted. “If I am to continue with my assistance, this must be done in complete secrecy. We cannot involve a modification facility.”

“If something irreversible happens,” Homura interjected, “he will be taken care of.”

There was no mistaking his meaning. Homura didn’t fuck around when it came to The Plan.

“Of course.” Shien bowed his head in agreement.

“We can only do the basic cardio and pulmonary mods tonight. They take a couple days to do their thing, then we can move on to the organs,” Zenon explained. “Once we’re done with the basic internals we can start in on the harder stuff. The strength mods in particular are rough. No offense, but someone like you? You’re gonna need to work up to them.”

“And how long will the entire process take?”

“If there aren’t any complications? Five, six weeks.”

Homura and Shien exchanged a look. 

“I wouldn’t suggest trying to speed it up,” Zenon said. “It’s gonna hurt like hell as it is.” 

“I can handle pain,” Shien stated plainly as he removed his outer robe. 

Damn, the guy looked like a gentle breeze would knock him over. Zenon could see why he might want to do something about that. 

“Shall we begin?” Shien smiled at him in a way that made Zenon suspect he’d been entirely aware of his scrutiny.

~*~ ~*~

Homura had stopped tagging along after the first few nights, apparently convinced Zenon wasn’t going to do anything stupid to jeopardize whatever arrangement he had with Shien. Zenon now had access to a stream of data outlining the complex protocol that governed dealings both with and between Benefactors, but he’d soon come to discover that protocol was just one of a very large number of things that Shien didn’t give a flying fuck about.

Zenon was pretty good at working people out. He knew how to guide a conversation and piece together the information and behavioral patterns that other people tended to overlook or dismiss. Shien was tougher for him than most because of the Benefactor thing, but when it came down to it, people were people. It hadn’t taken Zenon long to see that behind his impeccable courtesy and overbred manner of speaking, Shien was holding onto a deep reservoir of contempt for humanity in general and his fellow Benefactors in particular. 

It was something they had in common.

They rarely spoke of their individual involvement with Homura, but Zenon had heard enough to figure that Shien was feeding the movement both tech and information, and was probably doing a fair bit of sabotage as well. And Zenon was willing to bet that no one had a fucking clue that Mr. Perfect Benefactor had even thought to question the party line, much less was actively working to overthrow the regime. In fact, he’d stake a fair bit of capital that there wasn’t another soul out there — except perhaps Homura — who had any idea that Shien had the potential to be one dangerous motherfucker. 

Once Zenon had figured that out, Shien’s appeal had skyrocketed. He’d always liked his guys with a bit of an edge and he’d spent more time that he cared to admit wondering what it’d be like to get Shien to let down his hair, so to speak. Because from what he’d seen, he was pretty sure the guy could take it rough.

That idea was probably more of a turn-on than it should have been. 

Zenon had done a good number of complete physio overhauls during his time in the business. Most of them were for Homura’s people, but he’d also done a couple of guys involved in the underground crime scene. They’d been a damned tough bunch, but every single one of them had been brought to their knees by the pain of musculoskeletal modification. There was a reason, after all, that Zenon used the soundproof rooms of the pleasure facility as his base of operations.

Any image that might have remained in his mind of Shien the pampered Benefactor, sitting idle in his mansion in the sky, had been shattered when Zenon had started him on the musculoskeletal series. Unlike with some of the other mods, the pain of the first musculoskeletal wasn’t instantaneous. It was slow and gradual, escalating over the course of time as minutes turned into hour after agonizing hour of accelerated growth. Truthfully, Zenon had fully expected to have to restrain Shien to keep him from thrashing around and ripping out the IV cocktail threaded into his vein.

For the first couple hours, it had been as though nothing at all was happening. Zenon had been able to tell when the pain was getting to him by the sheen of sweat on his upper lip and the fine tremors that would occasionally shake his body, but Shien had acted as if nothing was wrong. It wasn’t until the third hour had passed that Shien had offered a brief apology before closing his eyes and falling into what Zenon later learned was the meditative trance he utilized when channeling L-line energy into the grid. 

Turns out, being a power conduit involved a truly incredible amount of pain. 

At the point in the modification process where anyone else would have been screaming their throat raw, Shien had been completely calm. And damned if he hadn’t handled it better and better every time. The last couple of times, he’d remained alert through the entire process. Zenon had to admit that he preferred it that way — there was something really fucking hot about watching Shien working to maintain his composure as the mods worked silently and painfully inside him. There were times when Zenon couldn’t tear his eyes away.

 

He grabbed his case off the floor of the transport as soon as it came to a halt. They’d finished up the musculoskeletal series a couple days ago and Zenon had insisted on a forty-eight hour rest period before beginning the final sequence: a hodgepodge of stamina, reflex, immune, and metabolic mods to round things out and put the finishing touches on the overhaul. 

In another week, Shien would, quite literally, be a completely new man. Zenon was itching to see how things had progressed. 

As always, Shien was already there, waiting patiently for him at the bottom of the transport stairs. Without a word, he placed his hand on Zenon’s shoulder and Zenon felt reality dissolve around him, only to be reassembled a split second layer. He grabbed onto Shien’s arm to brace himself against the vertigo he could never quite shake and found himself with quite a surprise on his hands. 

“Daamn. What do we have here?” He couldn’t help but run his hand up Shien’s bicep and across his shoulder to get a better feel. Even through the thick material of the cloak, the definition of newly-built muscle was clear. “Looks like the strength mods have been doing their work.”

“Yes, I believe they’ve been serving their purpose quite well.” Shien stated, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly in that way they did when he found something amusing. He’d been getting that look a lot, which Zenon figured was a good thing.

Shien took a step back, allowing Zenon’s hand to fall away, and shrugged off his cloak. 

Shien normally wore large, voluminous robes in accordance with his station. Tonight, however, he was dressed much more casually. He wore a single, light robe and instead of the long sleeves of his other garments, which he would push back only as much as necessary to allow Zenon access to his veins, this one was entirely sleeveless. It had been tied loosely, as if Shien had put it on quickly, the two halves not pulled tightly enough together to prevent them from falling away from each other and revealing the chiseled expanse of his chest. 

And wouldn’t you know, thanks to the wonders of modern genetic engineering, Shien was now hiding a fucking gorgeous body under those robes.

Zenon was finding it very difficult not to gawk like an adolescent at his first pleasure facility. It was like Shien had walked straight out of the fantasies he’d been entertaining the past few weeks, all long lines and lean muscle that finally gave some indication of the threat his form concealed. He looked good enough to fucking eat.

“I will admit to being similarly impressed,” Shien said, breaking Zenon out of his thoughts. 

“Shit. Sorry about that, man.” He laughed uncomfortably at having been so obviously caught staring. “I’m just surprised. I mean, the guys I did before were already pretty fit. The change wasn’t so obvious.” 

“Yes, I too am constantly taken aback by how incredibly different it is.” Shien laid his cloak over the back of a nearby chair and ran his hand up his arm, feeling the line of muscle with his fingertips—

“There are times when I almost do not recognize myself.”

Zenon watched as Shien’s hand traced the same path his own had taken just a moment before, long fingers continuing across his shoulders and then delving downward to the planes of his chest almost distractedly, like he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone.

Zenon thought it was one of the hottest things he’d seen in a very long time. 

Shien stopped the exploration of his own body suddenly, his focus coming back to Zenon in an instant. He glanced back up, locking his gaze. 

“Would you like to feel?” 

There was no way Zenon had heard that right.

“I am curious.” Shien took Zenon’s hand and placed it on his arm. “There have been so many changes that I had not anticipated.” 

The first thing Zenon registered, even before the sensation of hot skin beneath his hand, was that the air around them was suddenly charged, filled with an electric sense of danger that seemed to emanate from their single point of contact. It went straight to his cock, turning him on in ways that he really didn’t want to examine too closely. 

Zenon didn’t know exactly what was going on in Shien’s head, but he did know that he needed to tread very, very lightly. Still, he couldn’t help but run his thumb lightly across the soft skin of Shien’s forearm, pressing in just enough to feel the muscle underneath. It felt amazing.

“I find myself most preoccupied,” Shien stated, watching the motion of Zenon’s thumb with an eerie calm. 

“Yeah?” Zenon was pretty preoccupied himself, trying to decide whether he should be smart and walk away, or press the matter just a little bit more. It may have been a while since he’d had the time for an encounter that didn’t involve his VR unit, but it hadn’t been so long that he had forgotten what a come-on looked like. And he couldn’t deny the fact that whatever the fuck this was, it definitely had the appearance of a come-on. 

He slid his hand upward, gently and just the slightest bit, to test the waters.

“Oh…” Shien inhaled and his eyes fluttered shut. “It _is_ different.”

Zenon spread his fingers, claiming more of Shien’s skin with his hand. It looked strange, the sight of his roughened, scarred skin against Shien’s, pale and unblemished. He turned his hand over, running the back of it lightly up and down the outer edge of the arm, feeling the fine bumps that rose at his touch. 

When Zenon brought his attention back to Shien’s face, he was staring at him intensely.

“Strange. I was never aware of this before.” 

“What?” Zenon questioned. “Touch?” 

“Lust.” 

“Oh.” Something clicked in Zenon’s mind, a thrill racing through him as he finally had a label for the strange expression he’d seen cross Shien’s face more and more frequently. 

“At first I thought it was simply the modifications,” Shien mused. “Now that my body is growing closer to its ideal state, it is entirely possible that the physiological improvements are heightening my desire for sexual intercourse. But then there is the fact that it is only ever you.” He shifted, moving closer. “I have not reacted to anyone else in this way.” 

Zenon grinned. “Lucky me.” 

“It is so very strange, thinking about it as often as I do. I find myself thinking about it all the time now. When I am out there, playing a role for people I despise. When I am here, alone.” He was now close enough that Zenon could feel the heat of his body. “Sitting next to you while you thread your line into my vein and shape my body into something new. 

Shien leaned in, his breath a soft tickle of breath against Zenon’s cheek. “I think about what it would be like to fuck you.” 

And damn, nothing had any right to be as erotic as the way something that filthy sounded coming out of Shien’s mouth. Zenon didn’t give a fuck if this was going nothing like his fantasies; if Shien wanted to take the lead, he’d let him all night long. 

“Wanna find out?”

Shien smiled at him slowly, all predatory desire and heat. 

“Yes.”

Zenon decided he didn’t care if this was the worst, most dangerous idea in the history of humankind, which it most certainly was. He didn’t care if this fucked up Homura’s plans to overthrow the government and send the world into chaos. 

He wrapped an arm around Shien’s waist and pulled him forward, closing the space between them. “Show me that gorgeous new body of yours.” 

Shien stepped back and in a smooth motion stepped out of his shoes. He reached down, his eyes locked on Zenon, and all it took was a tug at the sash around his waist. The sash, then the robe fell to the floor, baring his naked body. His utterly gorgeous, perfectly formed, absolutely fuckable body. 

Zenon had only a split second to take the sight in before Shien was on him, capturing his mouth and pushing him backwards until he felt the hard surface of the wall against his back and too many hands on his body. They were pulling at his clothes, releasing clasps and pushing fabric aside to bare his skin to the open air.

“Kinky,” Zenon breathed as he pulled back slightly, biting Shien’s lower lip. “They teach you that in Benefactor school?” 

“No.” Shien laughed low in his throat. “I do not believe this was on the curriculum.” 

It must be useful, Zenon thought, being able to manipulate reality with your mind, because Shien had him out of his clothes faster than Zenon had realized was humanly possible. And the feel of Shien’s hot, naked body trapping him against the wall was mind-blowing. VR sex was fine and dandy, but he had forgotten how intense it could be with an actual human being. He ran his hands up lean thighs and around Shien’s ass to pull him closer.

“F…fuck…” Zenon stuttered, groaning as their cocks made contact. 

He wanted to thrust himself against Shien until he came between them. He wanted to trace the lines of those gorgeous new muscles with his tongue, mapping the work that he’d done. More than any of that, though, he wanted to see Shien lose even just the smallest piece of that control he kept so tight around him and catch a glimpse of the chaos he just knew was locked inside. 

He wanted to see Shien go crazy and drown himself in the aftermath.

Shien’s mouth was on his throat, biting into the skin so hard Zenon knew he’d wear the evidence for days and all he could think was how fucking good it felt. He thrust his hips upward, his cock grinding into Shien’s again and again. He knew he could easily come just like this, the feel of teeth against his skin and the friction of Shien’s hot cock against his own would be enough to push him over in a truly embarrassing amount of time. 

But there was no guarantee Zenon would get another chance at something like this and there was one thing that he wanted to experience. One thing he’d been fantasizing about every single day since the first night they’d met. 

He ran his hands up Shien’s back and neck, reaching for the tie to that damned hair covering. It, like the sash before, came undone with a simple tug and Zenon no longer had to fantasize about what that heavy weight would feel like in his fingers and how fucking amazing it would look cascading down Shien’s shoulders and back. He thrust his hands into the curtain of hair, wrapping the strands around his fingers and pulling hard enough for Shien to stop the assault on his neck. 

“Do you like that?” Shien questioned, looking him straight in the eye. He was flushed and breathing heavily.

“Fuck yeah.” Zenon gave another tug and watched Shien’s control unravel just the tiniest of bits. 

Shien liked it, too. Liked it a lot. 

Zenon pulled Shien to him, crushing their mouths together. For long minutes there was just the delicious, silken feel of hair in his hands, the slide of tongue in his mouth, and the hard press of Shien’s body, thrusting against his. Shien gradually resumed his exploration of Zenon’s body, biting and mapping its scarred planes with an intense focus that only served to escalate the sense of need building in Zenon. 

Before he realized what was happening, he was being filled by what could only be Shien’s power. It worked slowly at first, pulsing with a wet warmth and stretching him in an agonizingly slow rhythm. It’d been so long since he’d been taken that Zenon had forgotten how strangely good it felt being invaded, how it always made him ache for something he couldn’t name.

“Yeah … more.” He tried to thrust back against the force inside him, but it moved with him, denying him the pressure he needed. It suddenly surged, increasing in size and opening him up in a slick slide, pressing deeper and deeper before suddenly disappearing, leaving him open and empty. 

Zenon let out a strangled moan that echoed loudly in the wide open space of the room. “Shien … you gotta…” 

Gods help him, he was about to beg for it. Zenon was about to drop to his knees and beg him to get on with it when he was interrupted by the sound of Shien’s voice, its cultured tones now raw and open—

“I’m going to fuck you now.”

“Yeah … fuck yeah ….” He turned around, bracing his arms against the wall and arching his back before he could even think about concealing how eager he was for it. And then Shien’s hands were on his ass and he was sliding into him in a long, slow stroke.  
Shien pulled back, then pushed himself back in again and again, his pace growing steadily faster. With each thrust, his hair moved against Zenon’s body, caressing his back and chest, sending sizzles of molten arousal through his body. Reveling in the feel, Zenon surrendered himself to the feel of Shien fucking into him with all of his newly-found strength, using him in what could only be described as the most brutal of ways.

Without warning, the tight grip of hands on his ass disappeared. Zenon had only a split second to register the loss of sensation before Shien was pressed fully against him, pinning his upper body to the wall without breaking pace. At this angle Shien’s cock filled him in just the right way and Zenon could now feel the entire length of his body, damp with sweat, muscles contracting as he slammed into him again and again. But even more mind-blowing than any of that was the sensation of Shien’s hair, now cascading down Zenon’s shoulders and arms, and the wild electricity that seemed to crackle between them.

The pleasure building inside him somehow continued to coalesce with each thrust, taking Zenon further than he’d ever been before. Suddenly, he felt the impossible sensation of silken strands wrapping around his cock, binding it and tightening just enough to send him hurtling over the edge. He fell apart with the feel of Shien’s hair around him and the sounds of his climax ragged in his ears, spilling himself in wave after wave of pleasure.

It took longer than usual for Zenon’s wits to return and his breathing to slow to something approximating normal. He’d come so hard that he didn’t doubt he would have collapsed without Shien holding him up against the wall 

“Damn,” Zenon breathed, moving slightly to savor the feel of Shien still inside him. “You are one kinky bastard, you know that?”

“Oh?” Shien remained still, his arm wrapped around Zenon’s waist and his head resting against Zenon’s. 

“Yeah,” Zenon said. “I thought you guys were only supposed to use those powers for the good of humankind.” 

Shien chuckled. “I believe you could argue that definition.”

“You got a point there.” 

“There are many more things I would like to do,” Shien began after a long pause. “If you are amenable.” 

Zenon grinned. 

“Yeah, I think you could consider me ‘amenable.’”

~*~ ~*~

Zenon closed his eyes and tried to commit the feel of clean, warm water flowing down his body to memory. In the five weeks he’d been visiting the Upper Level, he had been introduced to countless luxuries, both small and large, but this was the most decadent and wasteful of all of them — the water not a sensation created from billions of VR permutations being uploaded into his processor, but a real, moving thing flowing over his skin. Out of everything he’d experienced, he most wanted to be able to remember what this felt like.

Tonight, Shien had sent the transport for him immediately after his shift, sooner than he ever had before. They’d fucked as soon he’d arrived, Shien bent over one of the couches in the wide open space of his quarters, facing the transparent wall. Zenon had gotten off wondering if anyone could see them and what they would think of Shien the Benefactor being fucked by surface trash like him. 

Later, Shien had taken him into the bathroom and introduced him to the complexities of the bathing ritual. He’d sucked Zenon off halfway through, sinking to the hard tile floor with his hair unbound and wet around him. It was a picture Zenon’d had to capture, locking the file away in the most hidden part of his processor. The sight of Shien wet and kneeling, droplets of water on his face mixing with semen as Zenon pulled out of his mouth and came in spurts across the sharp line of his cheek — just the thought of it made Zenon’s cock twitch even now, drained as he was. 

After Shien had fucked him, this time in the bath, slow and languid, he’d excused himself and left Zenon alone in the bathroom, telling him to take his time. Zenon’d decided that this being the first and only time in his life he’d have access to quantities of water like this, he was going to take full advantage. He guessed he’d been standing under the shower of warm water for the better part of thirty minutes. 

He did a quick time check.

_—2325—_

Damn, they really needed to get on with things. Zenon reluctantly shut off the water and crossed over to the dry area, grabbing a towel and beginning to wipe himself dry. 

The last week had been intense. There was no other word for it. Zenon had approached this whole situation with the assumption that every time he and Shien fucked could be their last. He’d told himself that he’d scratch Shien’s itch as long as the guy let him and they’d been scratching at pretty much every opportunity that had come up over the past six days. 

Zenon, however, didn’t have delusions about this being anything more than that. Tonight, they’d finish up the last of Shien’s mods and there wouldn’t be any reason for Shien to risk bringing him back up from the surface anymore. When they finished, he’d be transported back to the hangar and they’d both go their separate ways. The End.

He was man enough to admit he was going to be sorry to see the guy go, but Zenon also kept reminding himself that things were the way they were. He had a job to do and so did Shien. 

He finished pulling on his t-shirt and ran a hand through his wet hair as he walked into the main room. His jacket was somewhere around here, likely crumpled in a corner or thrown over a chair. 

Shien was standing in front of the table where Zenon had hurriedly dropped the case of mods when they’d arrived earlier. He was fully dressed, hair once again tied back and tightly wrapped. If it weren’t for faintly blossoming bruises on his forearms from Zenon holding them behind his back, you’d never be able to guess what they’d been up to the past couple hours. He was as put together as Zenon had ever seen him.

_Guess that’s that._

Zenon moved toward him, ready to get on with it. “You about ready to finish things up? This one’s gonna be a walk in the park compared to the shit you’ve already been through, but some people don’t react so good to the preservative in the immunoboost—” 

“Where did you get this?” Shien interrupted, turning to face him with a pre-loaded hypogun in his hand. 

“Well shit.” Zenon recognized it immediately. “I totally forgot about that piece of junk. Some two-bit hack was claiming it’s the piece of code that gives you guys your mojo. He was the craziest son of a bitch I’ve seen in a long time, too … wanted almost an entire year’s capital for that jewel.” 

“Really? That little?” Shien was staring at the hypogun with an expression Zenon had never seen before. There was something about it that sent a jolt down his spine.

“Look, I know you don’t do capital here the way we do on the surface, but that much? It’s not something we generally got layin’ around, particularly not to blow on something as crazy as this.”

Shien turned it over, examining it closely. “You kept it, though.”

“Yeah. There are always people who think you guys are hiding all kinds of shit from us. And some of ‘em got capital to burn.” 

“You have seen enough to know that they are very much correct.” Shien looked up from the hypogun. “There are many things about us you do not know.” 

“Yeah. But I’ve also seen enough to know there’s no way in hell anyone sane would ever let something like that get out of a lab.” 

“No, certainly not anyone sane.” 

Before Zenon could even register the movement, Shien had grabbed his wrist and was pressing the hypogun into his upper arm, releasing a stream of liquid fire straight into his muscle.

“What the fuck?” Zenon’s legs gave and he sank to the ground. He could tell by the pace the searing agony radiated outward from the injection site that whatever the hypogun had contained worked damned fast. He doubled over, clutching his arm. Gods above, it _burned_.

“We never meant for it to fall into your hands.” Shien knelt beside him. “But now?” He laughed breathlessly, the sound just the slightest bit manic—

“This will be so much better than anything we had ever dreamt of planning.” 

Zenon’s body was awash in a storm of molten electricity. Nothing he’d ever experienced could even begin to come close to the scorching waves coursing through him. He felt like he was being turned inside out and incinerated at the same time. His breathing suddenly accelerated to the point where he was gasping for breath, taking in lungful after lungful of air that felt like acid. Through the haze of agony, he felt Shien’s hand running gently through his hair. 

“I am given to understand it passes quickly.” Shien said, his quiet voice piercing through the storm of pain. The pressure of his fingertips on Zenon’s scalp was torture. 

Unconsciousness came racing toward him and Zenon couldn’t muster the will to fight it. He could be dying and he’d welcome it, as long as it meant the blinding agony would stop. His body shook suddenly, jolted by a short deep in his head and an explosion of electric pain in his augmented eye.

The last thing he was aware of was a thrill of foreign elation racing through him. 

It tasted of Shien.

~*~ ~*~

Zenon woke to the sound of voices.

For a long minute, he lay there, trying to sort through the disorientation and figure out what the fuck was going on. He knew the surface he was laying on was too soft to be his bed and the light penetrating his eyelids was too strong, too bright to be from his pod. He also felt really fucking strange. 

The first detail that filtered through the haze of confusion and coalesced into something that made any sense was that he was wrapped in cotton sheets that smelled of sex. 

_Shien_

He was lying in Shien’s bed, in Shien’s quarters, but everything was wrong somehow. Flat. Zenon’s hand flew up to his face and at the point where his augmented eye should have been sending image and temperature data to his processor … nothing. 

It was as blind as if he’d never gotten the augment as a kid.

He bolted upright, the sudden movement causing the edges of his vision to grey momentarily. He’d been horizontal for a long time. He tried to call up the time, but got no response.

Things started coming back to him: the feel of the hypogun in his arm and the unimaginable pain that had coursed through his body. Shit, he needed to initiate a scan to see what the fuck that thing had done. He tried to access his processor, but it was like hitting a blank wall. 

He reached out with a location query, then a data query. He tried to retrieve his message files, his executables. 

“What the _fuck_?” 

There was nothing there. 

Zenon tried to push back the panic blossoming inside him with cold, hard facts. 

He wasn’t in pain. Despite the absent flow of data from his eye, all his senses seemed to be more or less functional and his limbs were all intact. He couldn’t prove it with a damage scan, but he didn’t feel like there was anything actually wrong with him, despite the fact that everything to do with his tech was currently AWOL. And now that the dizziness of sitting up too quickly had passed, he realized that he felt better than he had in a very long time, like he had some sort of endless energy thrumming through him. 

His attention was suddenly drawn to voices in the next room. 

“How long do you think it will take?” Homura. And he wasn’t happy. 

“That will depend on the facility with which he adapts to this change. I have not yet been able to get an accurate gauge of its extent.” Shien. 

“You’re the expert.” 

Zenon felt a strange annoyance building in the pit of his stomach. It made no sense. 

“As you know, my expertise is not the practical. Once we have determined the suitability of subjects, I have nothing further to do with them.” There was a pause. Shien was searching for something to placate Homura. “I am told there is great variance in the time required to achieve full productivity. It is possible he will prove very surprising indeed.” 

“We’ll find out soon enough. He’s awake.” A few seconds later, the door opened to reveal Homura, Shien following close behind. 

Zenon had so many questions he didn’t even know where to begin. He settled with the easiest—

“What the fuck did you do to me?”

He didn’t know how it could be possible, but Zenon could actually _feel_ Homura’s anger. It radiated off him in waves, growing stronger the closer Homura got to him. 

“How do you feel?” Shien inquired. 

“Like I got hit by fucking lightning,” he said, glancing back at Shien, who had stopped in the doorway. 

It took Zenon a second to realize that there was something off about him. Something different.

He tried to ignore Homura, focusing his attention fully on Shien. He looked as stunning and unflappable as ever, but there was something about him didn’t seem as … present … as Homura. It was fucking bizarre. Zenon couldn’t process it, couldn’t find a word for it. 

“Shien, what the fuck is wrong with you?” he blurted.

Shien actually managed to look surprised. “What do you mean?”

“You’re … I don’t know, man. I can’t explain it.” Zenon looked back at Homura. “Homura, you’re pissed as hell. I can fucking feel it. Which, by the way, is freaking me out in ways I can’t even describe. But Shien, I can’t … it’s like you’re almost not there.” 

“Oh.” A flash of understanding accompanied the faint smile that crossed Shien’s face. “I assure you, I am very much here.” 

And suddenly something shifted and he was. So much more powerful than Homura’s anger, a wave of complex emotion washed over Zenon. It took him a minute to sort through the onslaught, but he knew it was all from Shien. Shit, if this is what the guy was feeling at any given moment, no wonder he kept under lockdown. 

The annoyance he’d felt before. Uninhibited curiosity. Carnal desire. Hope, but colored with a low-level, acrid anxiety. And layered over everything was a sense of being so fucking pleased with himself that it bordered on glee. It made Zenon want to laugh out loud. 

It could also only mean one thing. 

“Holy shit,” Zenon exclaimed. “That was the real motherfucking deal, wasn’t it.” 

“Yes,” Homura replied, his anger deepening. “Shien has taken it upon himself to provide you with a promotion. And with that, you are now his responsibility. Without tech, you are of no use to me on the surface.

“Hey,” Zenon protested quickly. “I’m nobody’s fucking responsibility but my own.”

“I hope you’re right about this,” Homura turned to Shien, dismissing Zenon without further thought. “If you can get him under control, take him with you. If not, deal with him. We cannot waste any more time.” 

And without so much as a glance in Zenon’s direction, Homura vanished into thin air. Apparently he could do the disappearing act too. 

“Shien, seriously. What the fuck?”

Shien sat down on the bed next to him. “As I am sure you felt, Homura is most displeased by my rash behavior.” 

“No shit. You didn’t seem to be too worried, though.” Zenon actually wasn’t able to sense the smallest trace of concern about that in the complex stream of emotion radiating off Shien.

“No. Homura’s anger is of little concern to me.” Shien reached out to him, running his hand down the blind side of his face. “I am not sorry for what I have done. I do, however, regret the loss of your technology. I hope you will believe me when I tell you that I could not have predicted your abilities would manifest in such a way.”

There was no way Zenon could doubt him, not when he was broadcasting so clearly.

“How did you do that?” he asked. “Make yourself … less?”

“What? This?” Something around Shien shifted and the steady pulse of foreign emotion Zenon had been feeling vanished. 

“Yeah, that.” It was fucking strange, the muted feel of Shien like this.

“The ability to shield ourselves is one we learn from a very early age. Those with empathic abilities are not common, but not so rare that we can risk leaving ourselves open to being read or influenced.” 

A horrifying thought occurred to Zenon. “Can you do it? Read people?” 

“No, empathy is not among my gifts.” Shien smiled, the faintest hint of smugness crossing his face. “My ability to shield, however, is exceptional. I believe you as well will have no difficulty developing the ability.”

“And what this buzz I keep feeling?” Zenon rubbed his arm, like it was some kind of itch that he could scratch away. “It feels weird. Good, but really fucking weird.”

“That is the source of your power.” Shien replied. “We will test your full capabilities soon enough, but based on the manner in which your technological augmentations reacted to the modification, I believe that you draw your energy from the lines in much the same way I do — in its most basic form. And I am sure that even you know technology cannot handle raw Ley power.”

“So what, I got this power running through me and it shorted everything out?” Zenon asked, the sense of building panic from before returning exponentially. “That’s it? No more tech?”

Because Homura was right: he wouldn’t be worth shit on the surface without his tech. 

“If your affinity is as I suspect, your body will produce too much interference for it be able to be able to directly interface with technology.”

“Wait a sec.” This couldn’t be right. There was just no fucking way. “Homura’s one of you guys and he’s got more tech than I’ve ever dreamed of being able to afford.”

“Homura is no more a Benefactor than you are,” Shien said, the annoyance Zenon had felt from before flaring up and creeping into his voice. “But as you have seen, he does share some of our abilities. His affinity is fire, which does not interfere with technological enhancements. The affinity you and I share is exceedingly rare.”

The reality of Zenon’s situation began to sink in. Without tech, there was no way for Zenon to interface with his pod, access the global database, or do any of the million tiny things required to exist on a daily basis, much less do his work as an Enforcer. Without even the most basic of processors, he would be forever locked out of society. He’d be no better than the packs of outcasts living on the periphery of civilization, subsisting on trash from the cities before their bodies finally shut down, destroyed by the toxic land and atmosphere.

“Shien,” Zenon grabbed his wrist, jerking him forward. “Why the hell did you do this to me?”

“You were wasted down there,” Shien said, as if that was explanation enough. “Homura used you, but you were nothing to him. You were simply one of many.”

The thing was, Zenon had never had any delusions about his importance in The Plan. He gave Homura what he needed for his people and in return he got a nice, healthy stream of capital and the promise that one day he’d see the Upper Level brought to its knees. 

If he lived long enough.

“Look, you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.” 

“To Homura, you were as disposable as the rest.” Shien looked at him intently. “To me, you are not.” 

A sickening thought crossed Zenon’s mind. “So what, you gonna keep me here? Lock me up and use me as your little fucktoy?” And while Zenon would admit that he’d liked the past few days more than he probably should, he was nobody’s possession. 

Shien blinked. “Oh, no.” He began to laugh softly, pulling back. “I think we would both tire of that very quickly.”

He rose from the bed and held his hand out to Zenon. “I have something to show you, if you are willing.” 

Zenon paused for a second. He had half a mind to get up and walk out of there forever. But if he did, where would he go? He didn’t have the first clue about how to get back down to the surface on his own, and even if he could, what would he do then? The underground crime scene was out: an ex-Enforcer would be too high-profile for them to take on, even with tech. He’d end up creeping around like the rest of the non-entities, stealing nourishment and trying not to get rounded up. If he was lucky, he’d last until his rebreather gave out. After that, he wouldn’t last long in the open atmosphere, even with his fancy lung mods. 

“What the hell.” He sighed, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Why not?”

Zenon expected the now-familiar rush of vertigo as he stood and grasped Shien’s hand, but this time the transport was easy. He could feel the molecules of his body dissolving and being carried along the currents of energy that existed in the spaces between visible objects in the physical world. The process of rematerializing was easy, almost pleasant, and when reality solidified again, he felt like it had been the most natural thing in the world. 

It felt good.

They were in a darkened room, lit only by a faint blue light filtering off some sort of control panel directly in front of them. Zenon could feel power crackling around the edges of his perception, greater than anything he’d felt so far and his attention was drawn upward to what appeared to be a capsule was mounted high on the wall, a maze of dozens of thick cables protruding from it, snaking their way into the walls behind. Underneath that immense energy, muted by its sheer force but powerful all the same, was a desperate, unvoiced cry that rushed through him in a tidal wave of _longingagonyfear_. 

“Oh my god,” Zenon gasped. He was alone, drowning in a viscous fluid and dying from the pain of more power than he’d thought existed in the world coursing through his body without the smallest instant of respite.

He suddenly felt the air shift around him and somehow he knew it was Shien extending his shield to encompass him, blocking the onslaught. He once again felt the stream of Shien’s emotions, but it was a gentle trickle compared to what he had just experienced.

“What the fuck _is_ that thing?” Zenon blurted. 

“He is called Nataku.” Shien was facing the wall, head tilted upward as he gazed at the capsule. “He was supposed to be our savior.”

“What the hell kind of savior is that?” The taste of its agony echoed inside Zenon. It shouldn’t exist, he thought. “…nothing like that should exist.”

Shien raised his hand and released a ball of energy that floated upwards, filling the space around it with a bright white light. It stopped just in front of the capsule, illuminating its contents. Inside, a figure was suspended in a thick liquid, a mass of cables attached to its body, connecting it to the capsule’s wiring. It looked like it was supposed to have been human.

“We keep a great deal about ourselves from those on the surface,” Shien began. “But there is one thing we will stop at nothing to prevent you from learning.” 

“No shit, man. People’d be pretty fucking freaked out if they knew about this.” Zenon gestured at the monstrosity hanging on the wall.

“No. Nataku is a result of what we must keep hidden, not the problem itself,” Shien stated. “The thing we will never admit to you is the fact that we do not all contribute power as you have been led to believe.

“We are, of course, all gifted with abilities, but the number of us able to serve as power conduits has always been small. Over the past decades, that number has plummeted. Despite great dedication of effort and resources, we have been able to determine no cause for the phenomenon.” 

“So wait, the line you’ve been feeding everyone about the L-lines losing their juice?”

“That is a falsehood. The Ley lines contain as much power as they ever have, we simply lack the numbers necessary to channel it as we once did.”

Zenon stared at the petite, almost childlike figure inside the capsule. He didn’t know how, but he knew that it was channeling a terrible amount of power. Its body was obviously a construct, built to resemble a human but artificial, capable of converting much greater quantities of power than the human form could withstand. Its golden eyes were open but blank and unseeing, and for some reason it had the long hair of a Benefactor, floating around it in a cloud of sliver. If Zenon had seen it before, he would have dismissed it as a fucking weird piece of tech. 

But now …

Now he could _feel_ it. He could tell that whatever it was that was wired into that capsule was alive. It could feel and think and reason. 

And it was being held against its will.

“So what, you guys thought it would be a good idea to cook something like that up to fix the problem?”

“No.” Shien shook his head emphatically. “Nataku was a last resort. We first developed the genetic modification that you yourself received. We had planned on bringing the necessary number of conduits up from the surface in secret.”

Now that sounded like something the Benefactors would do. With the level of control they wielded, they’d be able to pull an operation like that off without anyone on the surface being the wiser.

“What the fuck happened?” 

“While we were successful in isolating the piece of our genome that unlocks our abilities in general, the code for specific gifts has continued to elude us.” 

Shien had been a part of it. Zenon could tell by the frustration that colored his emotional bleed. There was shame there, too, buried almost too deep for him to sense. He couldn’t tell if it was Shien’s shame at being involved or shame at not being able to decipher the puzzle himself.

“We never know of what a subject will be capable until modification is complete,” Shien continued. “The ability to serve as a conduit is unfortunately extremely rare. We would have to modify a very large number of individuals for enough of them to be useful in this capacity.”

“How many?”

Shien paused. “Fifty million? Perhaps more.” 

“Damn.” There’s no way anyone would be able to keep an operation of that size under wraps.

“We have been able to divert a fairly large percentage of the criminal population into a modification program just prior to execution, but the results have been quite poor. The number of conduits the program has yielded has scarcely been worth the trouble of eliminating the unsuccessful results.”

“Wait, you guys have been recruiting _criminals_?” 

“Only those already scheduled for execution. When given a choice, the vast majority decide the pain of modification is a small price to pay for the chance to escape death and live out the rest of their lives in the facility we have for them here. As I am sure you can imagine, it is quite luxurious compared to what they have experienced on the surface.” 

“And what about the criminals you can’t use?”

Shien turned and looked him in the eye. “Their executions proceed as scheduled.” 

_Ruthless._

Zenon didn’t know if that came from him or from Shien.

“This is where the no-tolerance thing came from, isn’t it — you guys needed more people up for execution.” Zenon shook his head. He should have fucking guessed. “Damn, you really are cold-hearted sons of bitches.” 

“Yes.” Shien was in complete agreement, the thought prompting a strange combination of loathing and admiration. “It is a very delicate balance that must be maintained. As you are well aware, a collapse could occur so very easily. 

“Nataku was developed to prevent that from happening. We could not make humans into what we needed, so we created something else entirely. He now channels more power than all of us combined.”

“Shien,” Zenon began, grabbing him by the arm, “that thing is _aware_. You have to know that.” 

“Yes, I do. But Nataku has been declared technology and technology cannot be autonomous. It exists only to serve its purpose.” 

Zenon could taste the white-hot intensity of his rage. Shien hated many things about the Benefactors, had hated them as long as he could remember, but this… Zenon realized that _this_ is what had pushed him over the edge.

“There’s still not enough power.” Zenon stated.

“No. While what we have told you about the decay of the Ley line energy is untrue, Conservation is indeed necessary. Even with Nataku’s contributions, we are no longer even remotely able to supply enough power for the planet’s needs.” 

The ball of energy extinguished itself suddenly, leaving the two of them once again in the soft blue light of the console. 

“I ask you,” Shien began, “knowing the lengths to which we are capable of going, can you allow the Benefactors’ reign to continue?” 

“Hell no,” Zenon spat. “But I signed on with Homura a long time ago. I didn’t have to see this to know the system is fucked.” 

Shien reached out and pulled him close. “I know. But I have one more thing to show you.” 

After the electric rush of transport, they materialized in a large, open room that smelled of must and antiquity. Zenon had never seen one in person, but he thought it must be a library of some sort. 

Shien stepped back, taking his shield with him. Despite the fact they were alone, the loss of the shield made Zenon feel strangely vulnerable. He really was going to have to learn how to do that.

“Tell me, Zenon,” Shien began. “Are you familiar with mythology?”

“What, gods and monsters? That kind of shit?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Nah, never really was my thing.” He didn’t know how it was on the Upper Level, but very few Norms gave a damn about all that “preserving our shared heritage” bullshit. 

“I was taught mythology from a very early age.” Shien ran his hand across a row of books — actual paper books — that were stacked neatly on the shelf nearest to him. “The way in which humankind has seen the world and interpreted it based on his own understanding across the ages is fascinating: gods that take the forms of long-extinct animals, mischievous spirits born from rock eggs, benevolent extraterrestrials. The variety is staggering.

“When taken in isolation, a culture’s myths give an intriguing window into who those people were at any given point in time. When looked at more broadly, however, themes and patterns begin to appear. Studying these themes can help us to understand the persistent questions humankind has faced over the ages.” 

“Uh yeah, okay.” Zenon wondered where exactly Shien was going with the lecture. 

“As a student, my family encouraged me to read very widely and I took advantage of the extensive library of material from the ancient world that my clan keeps. After a time, it seemed I was encountering not just the same themes, but the same character again and again. The details were always different, of course, but he remained the same: a creature of immense power, born from the earth and living in disguise as a human. 

“It took me a very long time to piece everything together. As you can see, there is a great deal of material.” Shien bent over a desk and rolled open a scroll. A crude illustration of a yellow-eyed monster stared out of the pages. “This dates to almost five hundred years before the extinction of the youkai. The text tells of a feral child born from the energies of the Earth that was taken to heaven for punishment after slaughtering an entire village.” 

He flipped open a book. “This was written well after the demise of the youkai. It mentions a great cataclysm that was prevented by a being of chaos whose source of power was the Earth itself.” Shien pointed to the accompanying illustration. “The diadem you see him wearing here was forced onto him by the gods to limit his power and subdue his destructive nature.

“All the documents on this table mention a similar being. They are from a broad range of cultures from around the world and span an incredible period of time, but he is always the same: a creature of great power — a demigod — who wears a holy artifact around his head that allows him to pass as human. More often than not, he is specifically mentioned as having the golden eyes of a heretical being.”

“Look, Shien,” Zenon interrupted. “This is all real interesting. Really. But I’m still pretty fucked in the head about the whole ‘you got powers now’ thing and I don’t know where the hell you’re trying to go with storytime here.” 

“Here.” Shien took a yellowed envelope off the desk, pulled out a sheet of paper encased in preservative, and placed it in Zenon’s hand. “I will spare you the details of the situation itself, but this is the last mention I could find. As time progressed, such spectacular stories began to fall out of fashion. This is from a collection of sensational tales of heroism out of the last known wilderness. 

“It is an actual photograph, not an artist’s rendering.” 

Staring at Zenon from across the millennia was a young man, probably in his early twenties, grinning and standing awkwardly next to an older, scowling blonde. The photograph was faded and the only colors were shades of brown, but through the chaos of the smaller man’s hair, Zenon could clearly see the outline of a golden band around his head. 

“Good looking kid,” Zenon commented, trying to shove back the growing sense of unease. “Too bad about the jerk he’s with.” 

“I could find nothing more about him after this. It was, of course, the beginning of the modern era and belief in the supernatural declined. One could explain it like that and be done with it.” Shien shrugged. “But I’ve always thought that if such a being were to exist, he would be clever enough to realize when it was no longer safe for him to draw attention to himself.” 

“You can’t tell me you believe all this is about the same person.” Because that would be crazy in a way Zenon was not equipped to handle right now.

Shien crossed to the data terminal on the opposite side of the room and began what looked like the process of locating a file. “I am sure you are aware of the extent of Homura’s network.” 

“Yeah, I got a pretty good idea.” Homura had his fingers in any number of pies, that was for damned sure. Zenon put the photograph back down on the desk and followed Shien to get a look at the next batch of crazy he was undoubtedly pulling up.

As Shien stepped away from the terminal, Zenon felt a strange rush of static as his brain tried to process what it was seeing. One eye or not, there was no mistaking that there, on the screen, he was seeing an image of the same person as in the photograph he’d just put down. If the grin and unruly hair weren’t enough, the golden band, clearly visible, was exactly the same. 

Zenon didn’t recognize the clothes he was wearing, but there was no mistake they were modern. Contemporary, even.

“Shien. How old was that?” 

“This image was captured six weeks ago in one of the outcast settlements in the north.”

“No, I mean the other one. The photograph.” Zenon pointed back to the desk. 

“Before placing it in the preservative, I dated it to around 1200 BME.” 

“You’re telling me that kid is more three thousand years old?”

“If you believe he is the same being that was said to have been taken into the heavens for punishment, he would be almost five thousand.”

“There’s no fucking way that’s possible.” 

“Two days ago you believed the very same thing about your acquiring the abilities that you currently possess.” 

Zenon couldn’t believe how calm Shien seemed, spouting all this shit.

“And look at you now.” Shien ran his hand up Zenon’s arm, the gesture strangely provocative. “I cannot prove it yet, but I venture to guess that you are more powerful than the vast majority of Benefactors. Your abilities may rival even Homura’s.” 

Shien’s shielding could not contain the pleasure that thought caused him. 

“So what, you’re saying that all that’s true?” Zenon gestured at the chaos on the desk behind him.

“I believe it to be.” 

“Why are you telling me all this?” He knew Shien was getting at something, but nothing was making any fucking sense. “What does any of it have to do with shooting me full of that shit?” 

“‘All this’ was the reason you were introduced to me in the first place. It would have been impossible before. But now, thanks what you’ve done to my body, I am capable of so much more.” Shien stated—

“I can find him and bring him back with me.” 

The look Shien gave him was almost feral, filled with raw hunger and the desire to possess. “I want you to come with me.”

“And then what the hell are we going to do,” Zenon asked, “talk him into coming on board as a conduit? I think if he was interested in helping out he’d have already volunteered for the job.”

“Indeed. I imagine he learned long ago to keep his true nature hidden.” 

“Yeah, no shit. And when he refuses, what then? You gonna lock him in one of those capsules? Make him into another Nataku?” Zenon didn’t give a fuck about other people, but there was no way in hell he was going to have anything to do with delivering what that kid could be to the Benefactors. 

“I will do everything in my power to ensure that never happens.” There was a steely look in Shien’s eyes. “No one else can ever learn of his existence.” 

“Then why the fuck does Homura want us to go after him?” Zenon asked. There wasn’t a reason he could think of that would justify the risk of someone else discovering such a creature’s existence. Hell, if he were in Shien’s shoes, he would have burned everything in the library already, just to keep the information out of their hands. 

“Homura knows that the Benefactors will never give up.” 

Zenon could feel the hatred seeping out of Shien’s shield. He wondered if he realized it was happening. 

“We could try to slaughter every single person in the Upper Level,” Shien said, “but we would fail. Even if we were able to greatly diminish their numbers, the Benefactors’ hold on Earth — and by extension the colonies — is too great to overcome. As long as there is a single Benefactor alive who is a part of the regime, our plan is doomed to failure. There is only one way to ensure its success.”

And suddenly, it all fell into place. 

If Homura wanted to destroy the Benefactors, Shien was right: the kind of coup they’d been planning was never going to work. Their control was too absolute to be taken by force and their numbers were too great to eradicate entirely. If they wanted to end the Benefactors’ rein, nothing short of destroying the planet itself was going to do it. 

And if the kid in the picture really was some kind of demi-god who’d hidden himself in plain sight for thousands of years? That’s where Homura was going to get the power necessary to bring about their destruction.

_Shit._

“He’s not altruistic enough to go down with the planet,” Zenon said, knowing full well Homura had to have some kind of escape plan in place. 

“No, he most certainly is not.” Shien smiled, cold and brilliant. “An equipment transport bound for the Tau Ceti colony is scheduled to leave in two months.”

Zenon didn’t know much about the colony transport, but he was pretty sure equipment transports carried only crew. There might be room for a couple passengers, but not many. “Those things don’t carry many people.”

“You are correct. They are not outfitted for significant human transport.” 

And there it was. Not only was Homura going to sacrifice the entire population of the planet to wipe out the Benefactors, he was also going to leave behind everyone who had been loyal to him all these years. Final sacrifices for The Cause. 

A piece of their earlier conversation came back to him, echoing soundlessly in his mind:

_To Homura, you were as disposable as the rest. To me, you are not._

Zenon didn’t know whether to embrace Shien or punch him in the face for his audacity.

“Will you be on board?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes,” Shien replied. “And if you help me find him,” he said, motioning back at the five thousand year old creature grinning at them from the terminal screen, “so will you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the wonderful and amazing for the 2012 [7th Night giftfic exchange](http://7thnight-smut.dreamwidth.org/).
> 
> I'll admit that when I received this prompt my first thought was "Holy shit... who?" Because yeah - the Homura arc was not the part of canon with which I was most familar. After the oh-so-rough task of rewatching S2, I ended up having one hell of a goodscarycrazy time writing this. It is hands down the most difficult thing I've ever tackled and ended up being so AU that I think it might actually be able to stand alone. Maybe.


End file.
